Just got my first paycheck today, lost about 1/6th of it to medicare/social security/other costs, and this is without even paying taxes on it.
That is ridiculous.
For starters, the idea that the government knows how to spend money better than any average individual is a joke. Government is almost by nature inefficient, since it deals with problems at more or less the highest possible level and has little to no real involvement or knowledge of the issue. Any individual knows what is better for himself/herself in particular, far more than the federal government simply because of the level of involvement and knowledge. And if that idea doesn't convince, just look at the evidence. Government, to generalize, mismanages nearly EVERYTHING.
A few cursory examples will demonstrate this. Hurricane Katrina should have been dealt with at the city/state level, but instead the federal government tried to handle it (which they shouldn't) and made a mess of it. The government regulations on education are laughable. The federal reserve, some would say, is irreparable. Etc.
In addition, social security is more or less doomed since the population isn't expanding like it should. As I understand it, (and if I'm wrong please correct me) we pay for the previous generation, more or less, and the next will pay for us. However, if the next generation isn't big enough to repay us (and I'm pretty sure the math says it isn't) we are screwed.
So essentially I'm losing at least a sixth of my income and I have virtually no hope of seeing it again.
Makes me think of a quote from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (excellent book by Robert Heinlein): There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
Adults who pay lots of taxes and so on, how do you STAND it?? This makes me almost want to be a total anarchist, and I already think government is a necessary evil, and I'm only 18.
...
Wow, I've been complaining alot lately. Suffice it to say, things in CO are going amazingly well, lots of cool people at the YMCA, love going on hikes with them, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was an awesome movie, hanging out with grandparents is superb, etc.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I thought about this just last night, when we learned that someone would likely call the cops if my cousins and I set off fireworks _anywhere_ along the beach below Sleepy Hollow. A bunch of states make it illegal to even buy fireworks, much less touch them off?
ReplyDeleteAnd THIS is the land of the free, the home of the brave? Where it would be a felony for me to carry a sword cane? Where a few bottle-rockets might get us written up?
Definitely agree that social security is corrupt, although I can understand the impulse behind it--caring for our increasing numbers of elderly (who, with modern medicine, will live long past the age when they can support themselves) is a problem which I think has no easy solution. Thanks to the small families of the recent past--and the economic burdens of _those_ families--there really isn't anyone to care for some of these elders besides government funded institutions.
But social security won't work, because of the dwindling number of workers feeding into the pool. . ..
On government: If I recall, this is a point on which St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure disagreed. St. Bonaventure believed that government was a burden made necessary by man's fall, whereas St. Thomas held that government was an integral part of man's nature (including his unfallen nature). I'd tend to lean towards St. Thomas at the moment, if only because I think Ayn Rand sucks like a wormhole ;).
Peace!
Regarding Katrina:
ReplyDeleteA lot of the reason for the Federal Government covering Katrina has to do with the nature of insurance. The aggregate cost and risk of natural disasters is fairly well known at the national level, so it makes sense for cost to be pooled. New Orleans could not easily handle the cost or rebuilding after a hurricane - nor could a town like Verona after a tornado. So we pool the risk at a national level to keep the cost at an acceptable level to all, knowing that we may never have cause to receive the aid. You do the same thing everytime you buy car or health insurance.
Regarding Social Security: The problem is that SS is trying to be two imcompatible things. On the one hand it's sold as a retirement account - which it most certainly is not. If I were my retirement account, why can't I get at the money? And why don't my children get whatever remains after my death?
Rather SS is funded as insurance - retirement insurance in which current workers are paying for the needs of the current retirees. Which works only as long as you have a large enough pool of workers to pay off the needs to the benefictiaries. Your auto/health insurance essentially works the same way. In the case of SS the risk is not an accident or an illness but the "risk" of living to a ripe old age.
The problem therefore is that we have retirement insurance which is sold as retirement income. If SS had been designed to be strictly limited in scope so that the benefits were meager and NOT designed to provide for retirement but only to slightly ward off destitution, then it would be acceptable. That's not what has been done and so there's going to be a great reckoning in about 7 years.
It's going to be messy and it's going to make the tarp bailouts look minor by comparison.